Tyranny and Turkey

Recip Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, can probably run for president this summer. His Justice and Development party’s re-election plurality, almost 45 percent, was that big. He can now take Turkey...

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Posted Apr. 14, 2014 @ 12:01 am

Recip Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, can probably run for president this summer. His Justice and Development party’s re-election plurality, almost 45 percent, was that big. He can now take Turkey in whatever direction he wishes — a cause for alarm or reassurance depending on where one stands.

Last fall, things didn’t look good for him. Istanbul was wracked by huge crowds of protesters demonstrating against plans to tear up a city park and, more broadly, against Erdogan’s autocratic rule itself. Then a longtime political ally, Fethullah Gulen, an Islamist cleric living in Pennsylvania with a huge following across Anatolia, bolted. Recently charges were leveled alleging corruption and bribe-taking by close Erdogan associates and family members.

The prime minister dealt with this daunting panoply with brutal police crackdowns on protesters, intimidation of journalists, sacking and reassigning prosecutors and judges, passing new laws to protect himself, shutting down social media and general denunciations of all and sundry.

And it worked. As returns came in from far and near, it became clear that he had a thumping victory on his hands. While Istanbul and Ankara were lost, the great number of districts voted for to return his members to parliament. His popularity stems primarily from his 11-year stewardship of Turkey’s generally up-and-coming economy, which has seen several years of 9 percent growth. This has slowed sharply of late, but apparently not enough to slow Mr. Erdogan.

Beyond that, Turks generally seem to like Mr. Erdogan’s Muslim traditionalism. The country’s secularist history dates from the fall of the Ottoman dynasty a century ago, but small symbols, his wife’s headscarf among them, count for a lot. As for the corruption, well, like much of the developing world, Turkish voters have a low standard to measure it against.

What this holds for the future is uncertain. Some of Mr. Erdogan’s moves bear a disturbing resemblance to another leader’s. Russian President Vladimir Putin is similarly popular, even though he has topped Mr. Erdogan with his Crimea grab (which until the mid-18th century was part of Turkey). Some observers fear that the Turkish leader may regard democracy as a kind of bus that he is riding until it arrives at his stop. Then he will get off and establish an outright dictatorship.

Others see the implicit repudiation by the electorate of both Mr. Gulen and his followers on the right and the Gezi Park protesters on the left actually serving to free Mr. Erdogan to pursue more centrist policies, especially where they suit Turkey’s economic interests. This may include a warming of relations with Israel, in order to develop hydrocarbon deposits off Israel’s shores in the Mediterranean by building a pipeline to Turkey.